Such is the case in Maffet where residents, whose children have learned in the Lowlands, have recently learned that assistance in helicopter transportation will simply not be provided. Another potential savings item is overtime pieces that are paid but not employed by nearly all municipal officials.
Mayor Vanessa Meranville defends her measures by justifying them with an unfavorable context consisting of lower-than-expected revenue and unexpected expenditures.
At first it was Covid that gnawed 1.5 million euros from the municipal coffers and then more recently Batserai which blew 500,000 euros.
Municipal staff to show the way
As if these misfortunes were not enough, the horizon was darkened because of “The increase in the cost of materials is difficult to count by the end of the year.” “I take the example of the 20% lumber price increase we encounter at the École Cœur de ville, which results in an additional cost, from memory, of €700,000”The mayor explains.
The same effect as scissors in school catering where the city allocates an average budget of 1 million euros annually “And there is a price increase of 10-20%, or an increase of 100,000-200,000 euros per year”, remains the first judge at La Possession. All these parameters make “Our position is weak even if, since 2014, we continue to be as fair as possible in management, to continue to make all possible savings, and to seek funding and subsidies.”
If the tax leverage was really activated last March by raising the property tax rate, other actions could make people shiver, both internally and among users.
Thus, municipality employees will have to set an example by participating in this collective effort regarding overtime that is currently counted as working hours.
“We are simply in the process of getting things back on track. We are required to make each agent work full time 1,607 hours per year, but that is not the case for all agents. Some do not make all their hours so we are asking all departments to track each agent’s working time To ensure that whoever gets paid today is in overtime or working time.I will give a concrete example: Today nowadays almost all agents—except for technical agents or school agents—are paid for their lunch break time, which they should not be. When One eats, no one’s at work. So we’re going to organize that. It’s half an hour of overtime per day and per agent. And half an hour per week, multiplied by the number of weeks and the number of agents, that’s a lot of extra hours that won’t be there and it’s just work time It’s normal “and therefore Vanessa Miranville reasons for a better goal “Rationalization”even if the term came as a surprise from the community.
Other measures, in small steps, can quench this goal. Relying on the statement that there are no small savings, the Town Hall intends to make it a leitmotif to meet the budgetary control requirements monitored by the county and the regional directorate of public finance.
“We are looking at different departments, for example the environment department, if we can move towards mechanization and only need one agent with a high-performance machine instead of eight agents with brush cutters for certain types of work.”you remember.
Do more with less
Another idea of interest to the sports department this time is to mandate that the federations can manage the closing of the gymnasium themselves in the evening after it has been used. “So that we don’t have a guard waiting for four hours for the associations to start their activities.”
The school environment will not escape the search for waste. “We are in the process of rationalizing at the school level, to see if we can do the same work with a few more agents while being more efficient. In short, we are in this desire to rationalize, save and pay” we really do have quality agents because, despite everything, We kept a lot of precarious positions, with PEC companies going into fixed-term contracts. We believe we have quality agents so they are more efficient than they have been in the past.”says Vanessa Meranville.
Other public service users will have to bear the brunt of these budget cuts. On the side of Muffett’s Circus, there is a cool shower for parents who have learned the town hall’s intention to temper its contribution to helicopter transportation for educated children at the bottom.
Here, too, the mayor invokes meteorological conditions as a starting point for this idea. “The Rivière des Galets route is usually open at this time of year, but this is not the case this year due to the Batsirai completely destroying the track, so we no longer have more budget. For helicopter transport which still costs 3 to 4000 euros in expenses at the beginning and end every holiday to bring 35 Mafia middle and high school students home”Explains Vanessa Meranville.
“The only solution we have left.”Mayor says, Therefore, middle and high school students must be brought from Mafate by bus to Col des Boeufs and then escorted by a high mountain guide and four sports teachers to their island.
This configuration did not appeal to the concerned parents, opting instead to have their children dropped off by bus at Dos D’âne and then flown by helicopter, at their own expense.
‘We no longer have the means’
Elected officials were scheduled to be informed Thursday evening of the exact census of choosing the parents. “In fact, we plan to start in this mode of operation from now on because we no longer have and will not have the means, in the coming years, to pay such €3,000 at every start and every end of vacation”declares without detour the possession of the aedile.
Finally, for ideas that are off-putting but could contribute to this search for “cost-cutting” (a method aimed at cutting costs for better profitability, the editor noted), Town Hall has just acquired 10 electric scooters. “A lot of fuel is saved and given the increase in fuel prices, it’s not a bad thing, for short trips. We also have electric bikes, and advocate for eco-driving but also assembling a fleet of vehicles”the mayor lists.
“I hope that all of this will allow us to get back on our feet by the end of the year despite the unexpected expenses that will be ours, especially because there will be a thaw at the pointer point for civil servants and other reassessments that are being recorded by the government but we have not given additional financial means “Sorry, Vanessa Meranville.